Monday, November 8, 2010

Guest Blogger: The Most Intimate Moments of Our Lives by Gabriel Constans, Author of Buddha’s Wife

Buddha’s Wife is a novel about compassion, inspiration and forgiveness. Thousands of books, texts and stories have followed Siddhartha’s teachings and his path to becoming The Buddha, but little has been written about his wife Yasodhara, their child Rahula or their relatives, until now.

Yasodhara was the first woman in Siddhartha’s life, but not the last to follow in his footsteps. Why did he call his son “a hindrance” and believe women were a trap of desire and attachment “not fit to follow or understand my teachings”? How did Yasodhara and the nuns fight for equal treatment and rights? How could The Buddha have such compassion for others, yet be so scared of intimacy, emotion and love? What happened to sixteen-year-old Yasodhara and her two-day old son, Rahula, after her husband (Siddhartha) left her sleeping in the middle of the night to seek enlightenment?

As Yasodhara lies close to death and shares her experiences as a young girl, a wife, a parent and then a nun, her son Rahula, who has been in self-imposed exile in Sri Lanka, attempts a perilous journey, with his wife and child, to reach his mother before she dies and release the secrets about his father that he’s kept buried inside. Will Rahula and Yasodhara’s dharma sister, reach Yasodhara in time to ask for forgiveness? Can anyone ever forgive the unforgivable?

The Most Intimate Moments of Our Lives by Gabriel Constans

Until I read bell hooks books on feminism and love -Communion: The female search for love and All About Love - I would have sworn that I supported women (and men’s) liberation in every aspect of my life. But after the first few chapters I became painfully aware of the fact that I haven’t applied the same understanding and equality I try to faithfully practice at work, with friends, raising children and doing household chores to my intimate romantic life.

In Communion Ms. hooks says, “Some men cared enough to consent to feminist thinking and to change, but only a very, very few loved us - loved us all the way. And that meant respecting our sexual rights.”

I always think of my partners pleasure and satisfaction during sex and am turned on by her joy as much or more than my own sensations, but I also saw how I used to use coercion, control, emotional distancing and blame to get what I wanted. I continually gave her the message (unconsciously and nonverbal) that she was never “good enough”. I always wanted her to be more sexual, more often with greater variety and be different than she was or is, in order to fulfill my desires, perceived needs and fantasies. The underlying implications were “if you don’t change or be more like I want you to be, I’ll have to leave and find someone else.” It created a sense of fear and rejection.

Seeing this reality shattered my self-image of always being a loving, caring man and helped me acknowledge how often I and the continually reinforced messages from society, have caused such intense and long lasting loneliness for those women seeking loving, shared partnerships with men. Hooks states, “Feminist silence about love reflects a collective sorrow about our powerlessness to free all men from the hold patriarchy has on their minds and hearts. Our heartache came from facing the reality that if men were not willing to holistically embrace feminist revolution, then they would not be in an emotional place where they could offer us love.”

I began to realize that it is love and connection that I desired most, not sex. I no longer need sex to reassure me that I am loved or wanted. In the past, having someone desire and want me sexually meant that they loved me. If they didn’t have sex as often as I wanted, I reacted out of fear and sadness believing it meant they didn’t love me completely. Out of this sadness I would react with frustration and anger by trying to get them to “prove” there love for me with sex or by emotionally distancing myself and not talking, in order to “protect” myself from having expectations or “being hurt”.

These reactions and I believe that of most heterosexual men, are not realities I have totally ignored, but until reading hooks words I hadn’t really taken them to heart and honestly confronted my own patriarchal fears and thinking in the matter of love and relationships. It felt like bell had me in her sights when she said, “Feminist women stopped talking about love because we found that love was harder to get than power. Men, and patriarchal females, were more willing to give us jobs, power, or money than they were to give us love. Women who learn to love represent the greatest threat to the patriarchal status quo.”

While reading Communion some kind of switch went on in my head. At first it opened the floodgates of grief over my part in perpetuating such profound alienation and pain. Then a kind of peace engulfed me – a newfound love and acceptance of my self and my partner. I am less stressed and anxious about the future and don’t try to make people be different than who they are. Is it any surprise that my partner has also experienced more peace with herself and in bed? She no longer has to worry or wonder if she will ever “be enough” or meet my suffocating patriarchal images of how she “should” be.

As I learn to love, without depending on her to fulfill or “make” that love, she to is finding that our mutual appreciation and respect for what is present, rather than what is absent, has deepened every aspect of our lives. Neither of us need the other person’s “approval” to love or be loved.

Ms. hooks insightfully reminds her readers that, “Knowing that both women and men are socialized to accept patriarchal thinking should make it clear to everyone that men are not the problem. The problem is patriarchy.” The problem is our refusal to acknowledge our own behavior in the most intimate moments of our lives and the fear of real connection and closeness that keeps us perpetuating the myths and lies about the minor differences of genes, gender and genetics.

Gabriel Constans’ latest books include the novel, Buddha’s Wife, and a short story collection, Saint Catherine’s Baby. He has worked in East Africa at the ROP Center for Street Children in Rwanda, and has edited a collection of children’s stories, Rwandan Folk Tales.